Friends
by GoldenJedi
Summary: Aldry goes to Coruscant! Sequel to 'The Other Leia' and 'The Job' featuring an OC and Han Solo.


**Friends **

So far, it's been the most perfect year of my life.

I'm scared of saying so, but I have to finally recognize it. I didn't think so at first, in fact, I thought it was going to be all as boring and/or depressing as the rest of my life, but no. It wasn't. 

It all started when my mother dragged me to this social at the old Alderaanian Embassy... But no, it was not there. It all started, like anything else in my life, in a spaceport and with an old broken hyperdrive. I love old broken hyperdrives.

You know, broken hyperdrives can be repaired. There's almost always a way, and if there's not, you can be sure of what to expect of it. Exactly nothing. No surprises, no angst. But with new ones, oh boy, you are always wondering when they will finally break down. Because they will, no matter how tenderly you care for them, they will eventually break and leave you stranded somewhere. Unless it's a Daimler-Grés, but those are very rare and expensive.

Han laughs and says I'm a hyperdrive philosopher, and I'm not sure how to take that, but I know one thing: I'm happy then. He rarely laughs and I have the impression that he used to do it a lot more in the old days, by the lines carved on his face. I've heard other people talk about him, not knowing about my connection with Princess Leia's husband, and they said he was bitter and cranky, ill humored. I don't know, that's not the man I met in a spaceport five years ago.

That guy was quiet, alright. And if he was angry with you, man, you _trembled_. I swear. But he saw something in me that not even I saw. Well, maybe I saw, but I didn't believe. It took just a simple note, a few words on flimsy to change all that. I took the opportunity with both hands, both feet, and if I had a tail, I'd had used that too.

But I digress. The thing was, I said 'yes' and the next day I was provided with two comm-numbers in Coruscant. One for a possible job, the other for someone in the Alderaanian Aid Office. A week afterwards, I was leaving the system in a third class cabin shared with other five humanoids. My mom and the kids followed me two weeks later.

Being the old smuggler's pet mechanic was not easy at first, and one or two people even looked at us with dirty minds once or twice, when they saw us disappear together into the innards of the Millenium Falcon. By unspoken agreement we left the ramp lowered since then, and no one ever said anything.

It was almost bliss. The apartment the AAO had helped me found was by no means luxurious, but it was cozy and near my job and good schools. When the Millenium Falcon was not in Coruscant, I worked in other ships for my boss and slowly earned myself a reputation. It had not been six months since we were there, when my mother finally convinced me of going to one of the socials the Alderaanian Embassy organized every once in a while.

It was there that I met him. A soft spoken accountant a few years older than me, a little silver already in his temples, born and bred somewhere in the Outer Rim from Alderaanian refugees during the last days of the Empire. Somehow, he thought me attractive enough to ask me on a date – not that I had done anything to encourage him. In fact, I think I was pretty rude when he introduced himself and asked me to dance.

It took him five dates – five dates! - to kiss me, and by that time I was resigned to the fact that we would be only friends forever. I was even starting to think that he might have some problem in that department. He had become a good friend, though, and I was afraid to do something that would ruin it. But that kiss, oh gods, he indeed knew how to kiss.

After the kiss, he sled something into my pocket and when I was able to investigate it later, it turned out to be a datachip. A datachip full of his writings. Because that's was he does when he leaves his daily job as an accountant. He writes. Short stories, poems, reflections about what he saw and heard during the day. Memories of his dead wife, the girl he married so young and died during the Invasion. I think he'll be famous one day, but that's just me and I'm no expert in literature. I just love him.

A few days later, we finally gave in made love all night long in his apartment. I still blush at the look his neighbor gave us when we shared the turbo-lift the next morning. But that's not the point, the point is, do you know what he did after that first crazy surrender? He climbed out of bed while I was still sleeping, exhausted, and wrote a poem. Yes, a poem. About me, about us. About us making love.

I know, he doesn't know the difference between a hydrospanner and a reversal flux coupling, but I love him. He never fired a gun but I somehow know that he wouldn't hesitate given the right – or wrong – circumstances. I love him. And he seems to love me.

The kids love him too, and he's crazy about them. I mean, they usually drive _me_ crazy but they seem to be on their best behavior around Dareel. Oh yes, Dareel, that's his name.

Last week I told Han that I was getting married to him – Dareel, not Han, of course. He looked at me for a long time without saying anything. Maybe he didn't think I was the marrying type. Frankly, I didn't think it myself either.

There was no big orchestrated proposal, not for us. There was just a quiet question, a question asked deep from the heart, and an equally quiet answer. There was no need for anything else. We're both survivors, in many ways, and survivors recognize each other. Nurture each other. We just knew we were meant to be.

"Are you sure?" Han asked. "Is he good to you?" He almost growled.

How could I answer that? Should I show him the poem that I kept in a hidden pocket inside my greasy coverall, close to my heart? Maybe he'll understand then, but I can't. That poem is only mine, mine and his, we made it together. I'll never show it to anybody else. Should I tell him about the quiet evenings, about the loud shopping incursions with the kids and my mom? I think he knows everything about it.

"Yes, he is," I nodded.

"Congratulations, then."

We kept working on the Falcon all afternoon, without more words.


End file.
